The publication of McOndo Revisited: The Making of a Generation Defining Anthology in the Latin American Literature-World by Dr. Thomas Nulley-Valdés was celebrated on 31 October 2023 at ANU School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics.

At the book launch, Thomas shared his life stories and how they motivated him to write the book, his opinions on McOndo anthology, the experience of conducting research for the book, and more.

Watch recording of the event and the full discussion below.

The controversial McOndo anthology, edited by Chileans Alberto Fuguet and Sergio Gómez, was envisaged as a forceful contestation of local and global perceptions of Latin American literature, still fixated with exoticized and politicized narratives most especially in the magical realist style.

As the first comprehensive monograph dedicated to the McOndo anthology, McOndo Revisited rectifies numerous misreadings of the text and reclaims its primarily artistic intentions. Considered by many a commercial and critical failure, McOndo Revisited sheds light on this controversial work and demonstrates its role in historicizing the Latin American Literature-World and indeed becoming a generation defining anthology, even if through a most paradoxical fashion.

This event is co-sponsored by the Transnational Research Network (TRN).

About the Author

Dr Thomas Nulley-Valdés is Lecturer in Spanish Studies (Language and Literature) at ANU School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics. He is an emerging scholar of world literature with a focus on Spanish and Latin American literature of the 20th and 21st centuries.His areas of research include world literature theories and methodologies, Latin America's historical identity discourse, anthologies and literary canonization, author studies, Latino literature in the USA and Chilean literary history.